dsmeyer's Full Review: Sigma Design REALmagic Hollywood Plus PCI Video Ca...
A (Sigma Designs) RealMagic Hollywood Plus came with my Hi-Val DVD-ROM kit. The Hollywood+ is pretty much a requirement if you plan on enhancing DVD movies on older, non-Pentium III systems which are not fast enough to decode an MPEG video stream. Upon installation of this PCI card, I was able to view DVD movies on my Windows 98 computer in a snap.
Installation is another walk in the park; just slide it into a PCI slot. Connect the VGA loop cable to your video card, and connect your monitor to the Hollywood+ card. Boot up, and when Windows detects the device, insert the drivers disk. These drivers provide support for the hardware as well as how MPEGs should be routed to the Hollywood+ card. Assuming an IRQ is available on your system, Windows will have it set up for you in a jiffy. Then, you must perform the reboot Windows ritual. After all this, I looked in the Windows Device Manager, and sure enough the Hollywood+ was listed as a properly working device under Multimedia Devices.
Once you're back in Windows, the next step is to install the application that will allow you to play DVD movies. This is called DVD Station. It's not really a fully-featured program, but it allows you to do the DVD playback basics and to control the screen ratio size and such.
The playback quality is as it should be, crystal-clear, flawless DVD quality that never skips a frame. Even on a Pentium 233 with a Pioneer 10X DVD-ROM drive, I could not find anything bad about this MPEG decoder card. It does the job well, I highly recommend it for those who need the extra MPEG-decoding horsepower for their system. If you have a Dolby Digital stereo system, that's a plus, because the Hollywood+ includes an SP/DIF output port so you can enjoy the nice all digital experience of DVD's on your computer/home entertainment system. It also has an SVHS output port as well if you want the best possible picture quality on a television.
Those who have had problems with skippy or choppy video with DVD's need to turn on DMA for their DVD-ROM drive, just as the Hollywood+ documentation says.
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